Editorial Management,football, and theWorld Cup

I do not assume that all readers of this journal are avid supportersof football: I am not one myself. I know, too, that the word football,unquali®ed by any description, means a very different game in theUSA. But with the World Cup for association football, known in myschool days as soccer, due to take place later this year, it is appro-priate for the journal to add to the excitement.

What has football got to do with management? Both managers andfootballers like to achieve as many goals as possible, and both aremotivated to do better than the competition. But if we go beyondthis fanciful comparison, there is also the fact that football today is abusiness, and a very big business at that. It is increasingly becominga global business, in terms of the nationalities of the players in thetop clubs, the number of matches played with clubs from othercountries, and, naturally, that all important television coverage. Ofcourse, the World Cup is played by national teams, so is in a some-what different category.

To mark the occasion, this issue contains two articles aboutfootball. One is about the business of a top football club, and appliesthe techniques of business strategy analysis to this industry, and toone club in particular. The second is an attempt to make an objectiveanalysis of how to succeed in a penalty shoot-out, and is no doubtcontentious enough to stimulate a riot among some supporters.

I am not expecting the journal to do much to add to World Cupfever, but hope that the business concepts behind the articles will beof interest. My household will be following tennis anyway.

David Hussey

CCC 1086±1718/98/030125±01$17.50 Strategic Change, May 1998# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strategic ChangeStrat. Change 7, 125 (1998)